


Shadows Taller Than Our Souls

by orphan_account



Series: Wonder [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Domestic, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-15
Updated: 2012-05-15
Packaged: 2017-11-05 10:48:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/405565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn’t know if this is buying him a stairway to heaven or paving a road to hell, but he doesn’t care. If living selfishly means his life is about and for and with Cas, then he’ll live as selfishly as they come.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadows Taller Than Our Souls

Four months after everything changes, Bobby accidentally catches them leaning much too comfortably into each other in his kitchen. 

His mouth drops open in disbelief, throat working soundlessly; Dean gives him a grin and a wink and continues going about his business with Cas in classic Dean style. In less than a minute Bobby manages to pour himself a glass of whiskey, drop it, and start howling with mirth hard enough to bring tears to his eyes. Cas’ slight smile turns into a full-blown grin, and the whole house echoes with laughter.

 

\---

 

Cas has gotten exponentially better at gestures and idiomatic expressions and food and sleep and he’s even taken to Dean’s music with surprising alacrity. Dean eventually gets him to start dressing normally; Cas falls easily into the default of darks and woodsy colors, simple clothes that hunters wear. At first it’s extremely strange to see him in jeans and a t-shirt, but the look of jeans-sans-t-shirt grows on Dean  very quickly. They’re close enough in size that Dean doesn’t usually bother separating Cas’ shirts from his own, and sometimes he finds himself deliberately picking out a shirt that smells more like Cas than the others. 

Occasionally, they fight over who gets to wear the vintage Led Zeppelin shirt. 

 

\---

 

They hunt more and more locally as the years go on; Dean is equally happy both hunting with Cas and sleeping in with him. 

They spend their free time quietly; fixing up the Impala, fixing up other cars for some spare cash, drinking a lazy beer at the end of the day, facing west and watching the sunset through the trees. There’s a particularly pensive, meditative feeling he gets; he wonders about the afterlife, life now, life with Cas. 

He doesn’t know if this is buying him a stairway to heaven or paving a road to hell, but he doesn’t care. If living selfishly means his life is about and for and with Cas, then he’ll live as selfishly as they come.

 

\---

  
He’s staring out west; it’s sunset and someone must be already lighting up their fireplace since there are rings of wood-smoke curling through the trees.

“Hey, Sammy,” he says quietly. “I, uh… I’m hopin’ you can hear me, ‘cause this is pretty serious.” 

Dean twists the thick band on his finger nervously. 

“You know, it’s been over six years now, since– since you left, and since Cas and I figured stuff out and–” He chuckles breathlessly and shakes his head. “It still kinda scares me, how normal this feels and how okay I am with it. That’s, um, kinda what this is about.” 

The house is quiet, half an acre behind him, but Dean can predict that Cas is either reading or shuffling through vinyls, trying to decide what to play. 

“Cas’s talked about it a couple times, and– god, I can’t believe I’m sayin’ this, but, uh… I was thinkin’ about, you know–” 

He swallows and knows that if he can’t even talk about it, he won’t be able to do it. The idea has been occupying his thoughts for over a year, now, and if he doesn’t do something about it he’ll go crazy. Cas might be angelically patient, but Dean is _ not_ . 

“I’m gonna give him Dad’s wedding ring, Sammy,” he whispers, and he can’t stop his voice from breaking or the smile from tugging on his mouth. “I mean yeah, sure, it’s a bit unorthodox or whatever, but it just feels right.” 

It’s like a huge weight has been lifted from his chest, now that it’s out in the open. 

“I know you’d probably be sitting here and acting like a total girl, but, uh… thanks for listening. Cas prays for you every day, you know that?” 

He smiles again and watches the sun sink a couple of degrees, and then something squeezes at his heart and he suddenly realizes that the time is _ now_ . He practically sprints back to the house.

“Cas?” 

Not in the kitchen, not in the living room – he takes the stairs two at a time and Cas is in the room with all of their vinyls and paperbacks, in faded jeans and a worn gray t-shirt and he’s never looked more beautiful.   


“What’s going on?” 

Dean’s completely out of breath; he takes Cas’ concerned face between his hands.

“Cas,” he whispers, and those endless blue eyes soften; he carefully kisses Cas’ forehead. “Castiel, Angel of Thursday, I love you.” 

Dean pulls the worn, still-warm silver wedding band off of his right hand and sinks down to one knee. 

“Will you marry me?”

 

 

The resulting ‘yes’ is so emphatic that they manage to black out half of the state.

 

\---

  
Cas has his heart set on being married in a church, which makes things a lot more complicated than just heading to a courthouse. 

Dean grumbles his way through driving to the tiny church in upstate New York, but the second the ceremony starts and Cas’ face lights up he can’t wait for it to be official. The preacher says solemnly that angels must be watching over them, to which Dean dissolves into laughter and responds that no, there’s only one. 

Their wedding bands are covered with Enochian sigils.   
  


\---

 

At fifty-three, twelve years after Bobby is buried, Dean gets caught off-guard, ripped to shreds by a crazed vampire. 

Castiel vaporizes it on the spot. 

He can’t stop the flood of human tears as he holds Dean’s bloody face between his hands and his lips move one last time, and he whispers “see you in heaven, Cas,” before closing his eyes. 

Cas screams with grief and rage; he releases his vessel and disintegrates everything in a ten-mile radius before ascending to Heaven in a fiery column only to see Dean, looking exactly as he did the day he was resurrected, grinning at him and offering him a cold beer. 

“Took you long enough” is all he says before all but melting himself into Cas.   
  


\---

 

Thirty years later, a young, lone hunter is tracking a wendigo when he comes across a barren stretch of land in the middle of a dense forest. 

At the exact center of it there’s a huge imprint of what looks like pitch-black wings, thrown outwards as if their owner had been trying his hardest to fly away. Nestled directly in between them, embedded in a small, pure-white rock, are two faded gold bands. The hunter sinks to his knees when he realizes he’s come across the gravesite of _ the_ Dean Winchester, the Righteous Man, the hunter whose name is legend, the man who lost everything to save the world, the man with the angel at his side. 

He hears wingbeats and turns around, but it’s just the whispering wind. There’s nothing there except shadowed wings and wedding rings.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Shadows Taller Than Your Souls](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1372180) by [silkylustre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silkylustre/pseuds/silkylustre)




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